Justin Appel

Dear Friends,

Today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah looks forward to a day in the future when all of God’s people, cleansed from their sins, would live in Jerusalem and “in Zion,” where God’s presence will serve as a canopy over the city, a “cloud by day and a smoke and the shining of a flaming fire by night.”

This text puts me in mind of the 7th- or 8th-century hymn Urbs beata Jerusalem, a hymn that became attached to the Office of Dedication of a Church. The English translation by John Mason Neale has come into the Anglican vernacular as “Blessèd City, heavenly Salem,” a text set as a metrical hymn (to the tune REGENT SQUARE) and as a glorious choral anthem by Edward Bairstow (1874-1946). The full text is reproduced below: 

Blessèd City, heavenly Salem,
Vision dear of peace and love,
Who, of living stones upbuilded,
Art the joy of heaven above,
And, with angel cohorts circled,
As a bride to earth dost move!

From celestial realms descending,
Bridal glory round her shed,
To his presence, deck with jewels,
By her Lord shall she be led:
All her streets and all her bulwarks,
Of pure gold are fashionèd.

Bright with pearls her portals glitter,
They are open evermore;
And, by virtue of his merits,
Thither faithful souls may soar,
Who for Christ's dear name in this world
Pain and tribulation bore.

Many a blow and biting sculpture
Fashioned well those stones elect,
In their places now compacted
By the heavenly Architect,
Who therewith hath willed for ever
That his palace should be decked.

Yours in Christ,

—Justin